


2:37

by amateur_professional



Series: Bromance Blurbs [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drugs, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, bros being guys, but this time it's full of extreme dread, guys being bros, maybe? aaauhg i need so much more lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25451779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amateur_professional/pseuds/amateur_professional
Summary: Herschel calls Leo out of the blue late one night.
Relationships: Herschel Voigt & Leo Voigt
Series: Bromance Blurbs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843462





	2:37

**Author's Note:**

> tfw there is much missing context floating around in discord dms and it would take hours hunting it all down so you might as well have no context whatsoever

It was around 2 am when Leo’s phone suddenly sounded. Strange. Who would be looking for them this late? It couldn’t be the precinct, since they were still doing the day shift. Aliby, despite his other tendencies, did respect their sleep enough not to bother them. They didn’t really have other close associates either, and they knew both Gum and Roose were in the other room. So who..?

They answered with a drowsy “H’llo?”, expecting anything but the familiar voice of Herschel to come through.

“Hey, bro.” He said, breathing heavily. What the hell?

They jolted awake immediately. “Herschel—?! It’s two in the morning, you shouldn’t be—are. Are you drunk?” Silence. He doesn’t reply. “Damn it,” Leo muttered. It was 2 am and here he was, calling out of nowhere from who knows where and absolutely hammered. “What happened?”

His breath hitched.

“Listen, I just—I need someone t-to talk to, okay?” He stammered. “I feel like shit and I can’t think straight and—god, I just.. I can’t handle this alone.”

“..Alright.” With effort they kept their voice low, but they couldn’t stop the unease from leaking in. “Talk to me.”

“Y-yeah, okay.. it’s stupid.”

“Tell me anyway.” There was a long pause, then the faint clink of a full glass.

“ _It’s dad_.” He mumbled, having recomposed himself for the time being. “You ever notice that I look a lot like him? Agh, do you even remember what he looked like? It wasn’t obvious when I was younger, but..” He chuckled bitterly. “Lord. Everything. I’ve got his face, his hair, I even have his voice now, the kind he would use when he pretended to be nice to make you trust him.” A sip. “Do you know how fucked this all feels?”

”I.. no. I didn’t know you felt this way.” He didn’t show it. They didn’t know anything past his vague ramblings on ’tough love’ that night in their living room.

“Heh. Yeah.” His casual tone did nothing to hide the fact that he was hurt. They shouldn’t have said that. He started laughing again like someone had just told him a joke. “Of course you don’t! Y.. you don’t know what he did to me.” _Yes, he. He’s hilarious. Fucking sidesplitting._ “It’s.. funny, you know? I’ve spent so long trying to move on from those shitty years so nobody would have to deal with my trauma, but he’s following me everywhere I go. I can’t.”

They didn’t know what to say.

“And now I’m pulling you into this..”

“You’re not ‘pulling’ anyone.” They said firmly. ”He was my father too.”

“I’m nothing like you, though. You’re great. Look at you. You’re not being all pathetic in a—”

“You’re nothing like _him_. Do you think he ever stopped to wonder if he was hurting his family?”

“What if he did?”

“It doesn’t matter. He never changed his ways regardless.”

Giggling. “Yeah, see. I wish I could get that through my head. But I can’t even properly hate him. G-god, he—” He swallowed. “He beat it out of me.”

Literally, figuratively, or both? Which was worse?

_You don’t know what he did to me._

What did he do?!

“What he did?” They didn’t realize that they said it out loud. “Lots of things. It makes me wish he disowned me sooner—he had a sodomite as a son, for christ’s sake.” A laugh? Maybe. It sounded like a sob. “I’m fine with it on most days; the whole. Looking like him and hearing his voice everywhere thing. It just.. it gets bad sometimes, you know? I’m tired. And.. I’ve had a really bad day, Leo.”

They weren’t good at comforting with words.. if they were physically there with him, they could do more. They needed to do more.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

There was nothing but stilted breathing on his end.

“We have time.” They added hastily. “As much as you need.”

…

“I woke up in a hotel and thought everything was fine.” He began shakily. “The day felt off, though. I didn’t know why, I just felt.. kind of angry. Kind of anxious, too. It kept getting worse the longer I was awake for. _I couldn’t stop thinking about him._ After all the meetings, I thought it was over and I could go back to my room.. and then I had to fuck up and punch a mirror. I didn’t know what happened until I was picking the shards out.

“It was the last intact one in their bathroom, I think.. yeah, the place is pretty run-down. They had plenty of booze and drugs, though.” He froze. “Lord, what if I..” He stopped, the words at the tip of his tongue.

“Herschel..? Where are you?”

“..O-Oh, shit.”

What happened next, they assumed, was that he placed his phone onto a table without hanging up. He made a few strained sounds and the occasional swear as he tried, and failed to hold his tears back before he was full-on sobbing. Part of them wanted to put their phone down as well. It was—horrible. Just horrible. Raw and unhinged and something they never could’ve imagined coming from him. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know what set him off, or why, or what they could say.

It didn’t last very long. Near the end he shifted to muffled giggling as he once again picked up his phone. “I’m in one of their bases. It’s close to you, fu-funnily enough.. that slipped my mind. They’ve got this nice abandoned community centre for meetings.. they don’t care what happens in the building after that.”

An abandoned community centre? They had a hunch on where it was.. they must have passed it in the more run-down areas on patrol. Some investigations had gone on there before over gunshots and suspected drug dealings, but no evidence was ever found.

..Huh. Wait.

“You were saying before? ‘What if you’..?”

…

“My hand’s all wrapped up.” He said detachedly. “And it doesn’t hurt.”

They inhaled sharply against the rising panic. “Did you take painkillers?”

“I’m.. I’m trying to remember. I dunno.”

He hadn’t been aware where he was until they brought it up. He wasn’t going to remember.

“Anyway.. I realized something just now, actually. The guys in this base do a great job at cleaning up. You wouldn’t be able to tell if they dropped a whole bag of crack on the floor. The same thing probably happens with bodies, right? Nothing left of the person.”

(One’s first instinct would be to call the police when suspecting a suicide threat. Look at them now, the damned irony.)

They couldn’t manage anything but stunned silence.

“That doesn’t sound like a great way to go.” He commented lightly.

…

“..Leo?”

“ _Herschel Voigt, you absolute HALFWIT._ L-Listen to me. Please.” Their voice softened. “Promise you’ll visit tomorrow so I can get a good look at you?”

He snickered. It was still tinged with sadness, but it was genuine. “You _mom_.”

“Will you?”

“..Yeah.” He sniffed. “I’ll find a ride.. I think some of the guys could help.”

They breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

The conversation tapered off.

“Thanks for everything, big sib. I mean it.”

Before he hung up, they heard the rattle of a bottle of pills being put down.

=====

Herschel kept his promise.

He turned up at the door in the morning, wary, hungover, but unharmed apart from the bandaged hand. A black car sped away in the distance. They had to stop Roose from running over to him, regrettably, and she pouted while clinging to Gum’s leg.

‘What’s wrong?’ She mouthed. They would answer her later.

“H-Hey.” He greeted them with a weak, unsteady attempt at a smile as he leaned against the doorframe for support. “Wanna climb another tree?”

That’s what he had to say after the—the _stunt_ he pulled?

They said yes all the same, and tugged him into a tight embrace the instant they got him inside. He made a sad, quiet noise of contentment as he closed his eyes, returning it with an uncharacteristic muteness. Leo pressed their lips to his hair like they did with Gum on a bad day. They stayed like that for a while.

“Do you remember what happened last night?”

“..Wish I didn’t.” He grumbled, muffled into their shirt. Then he started laughing bitterly. “But I’m still glad. If it weren’t for you I would’ve..”

They held him closer. If they felt any wetness on their shoulder, they didn’t mention it.


End file.
